Recently, I had the pleasure of hosting my mom and sister for a weekend. They came down primarily to see my house (my mom’s first visit since my husband and I bought it). However, they also agreed to help us with our fall yard work.

In return I wanted to make something special for my mom to eat. She LOVES cheese torellini…..especially in a creamy salad. She always makes the infamous Italian tortellini salad whenever I come home for a visit.

I wanted to make a tortellini dish for her that was a bit different, yet still familiar (she doesn’t even keep olive oil on hand, so she is not very adventurous when it comes to food). I had just the cookbook to refer to!

A long, long time ago [insert music mantra here] I received a cookbook titled “Favorite Brand Name Classic Recipe Collection”

It definitely provides exactly what you think…..classic dishes using those classic canned foods that I am now trying to avoid (errrrr). But, this did not stop me!

In fact, after looking through the cookbook for a recipe, I am now inspired with a new challenge — I am going to try and make all the recipes in this cookbook but use only fresh, local, organic, or at least origin-known foods (for only those recipes I know I will like….I dislike anything with mushrooms). Their “Tangy Garlic Tortellini Salad” recipe was my first attempt.

So, I have to admit, this was a pretty easy recipe to start the challenge on. For the most part, it called for a lot of fresh vegetables! The only item I had a hard time on was the tortellini……I do not have enough courage [yet] to make my own cheese-filled tortellini and I do not know of any local place where I could buy this fresh from, so I had to settle on the store brand frozen tortellini. To make myself feel at least a little bit better about this small defeat, I made sure to check all of the different options to find out where they were manufactured and purchased the one closest to home!

Otherwise, the outcome for this challenge was pretty much a success. I will be keeping this recipe in my collection to use up fresh garden veggies come summer time. I may try substituting in plain spiral pasta as well.

I loved the peppery bite and garlic zing the salad had….it was right up my mom’s alley as well….success!

Tangy Garlic Cheese Tortellini Salad

Ingredients:

1/4 cup mayo

1/4 cup plain yogurt

1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/4 cup chopped green onion

1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1 teaspoon garlic salt

9 ounces frozen cheese-filled tortellini (cooked and drained)

2 red bell pepper, chopped

1 cucumber (or zucchini), seeded and chopped

4 carrots, chopped

Directions:

In a small bowl, combine all ingredients except for pasta and vegetables (but do include the chopped green onion).